Two Spectacular Works by Pablo Picasso to be offered in Sotheby's Impressionist Evening sale - NovemSotheby’s evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on November 7, 2007 will feature two spectacular works by Pablo Picasso – the finest sculpture by the artist to ever appear at auction

News-Antique.com - Oct 09,2007 - TWO SPECTACULAR WORKS BY PABLO PICASSO TO BE OFFERED IN SOTHEBY’S NOVEMBER 2007 EVENING SALE OF IMPRESSIONIST AND MODERN ART

-- THE FINEST SCULPTURE BY THE ARTIST EVER TO APPEAR AT AUCTION

-- PAINTING FROM 1931 COMES DIRECTLY FROM THE PICASSO FAMILY

New York, NY – Sotheby’s evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on November 7, 2007 will feature two spectacular works by Pablo Picasso – the finest sculpture by the artist to ever appear at auction, Tête de femme (Dora Maar), which is estimated to sell for $20/30 million, and La Lampe (pictured left) an important work from 1931 that comes directly from the artist’s family and is estimated to bring $25/35 million. Both works, which have never before been offered at auction, will be on view at Sotheby’s London from October 7-12 and in New York from November 2-7 prior to their sale on the evening of November 7, 2007 in New York. Emmanuel Di Donna, Senior Vice President in Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department and Director of the Evening Sale said, “While each of these works is great individually, the relationship between the two functions on so many intriguing levels that each work underscores the importance of the other. Their joint appearance on the market is both a
remarkable collecting opportunity and a curatorial event. Marie-Thérèse Walter and Dora Maar are the two women who inspired Picasso’s art more than any others and their reigns in his life and oeuvre over-lapped. In these two works we have an illustration of the reciprocal effect that painting and sculpture had upon each other; the transition from the surrealist-inflected and peaceful early 1930s to the gravity of the War Years; and, the model as the sensual, pliant object of the artists gaze versus the forceful, challenging personality of Maar. Viewed together, these great works stimulate as well as elucidate the course of Picasso’s art post-Cubism.” “La Lampe, a masterpiece by Picasso which has been kept in the artist’s family until now, is one of the key works of the 1930s - a crucial and highly sought-after period in the artist’s oeuvre,” continued Mr. Di Donna, Senior Vice President in Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department and Director of the Evening Sale. “This remarkable and monumental canvas appears to be a vibrantly colorful ode to classicism: a plaster bust, framed and illuminated against the dark archway and surrounded by a garland of leaves. But there is much more to this picture than meets the eye; what we see here, bathed in the warm glow of a gas lamp that hung in his Boisgeloup studio, is the unmistakable likeness of the artist’s mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter.” Painted during the summer of 1931, the theme of illumination is timely. It was during these months that Picasso began to cast his artistic spotlight on his young lover - a sensual young blonde whose unveiled presence here would raise the suspicions of Picasso’s wife the following year. Up until this point he had only